Is this one of the worst financial decisions ever?

Suhusa

Brie said:

I'm amazed at the people I've worked with in the financial industries who are hopeless when organising their own finances. 

Like the chap who insisted that he didn't want to be in the company health scheme and bought his own health insurance instead.  So paid, not a lot, maybe £25 a month out of his after tax pay instead of getting the better cover for "free" (taxable benefit of costing about £5 a month)

Like the other chap who decided to take all his money out of the share purchase and share save schemes at work "rather than lose it all" when we were being made redundant and thus got taxed on it.  If he had asked I would have told him to hold on and cash it all in after the redundancy when there would be nothing lost.

And like yet another chap who thinks that money is all to be spent immediately rather than saved or used to pay off debts, that holidays should all be first class as that saves money (??), that won't consider buying a house/flat because his landlord has to fix everything (but doesn't) and can't kick him out (but is about to).  And wants to be a budget counsellor.  

My mum knew someone who was on one gas meter together with the neighbours. That person did not want to risk paying a share of the neighbours gas use, so they heated their own flat like mad, so that the situation reversed and that the neighbours would pay for their own gas and a share of my mum's acquaintance's gas use. Because obviously it's more important to get one over your neighbours than saving money all around...

Suhusa

michaels said:

westv said:

michaels said:

Key factor in the UK is the imbalance between supply and demand.  If house prices were closer to build costs (because we did not restrict housing land) then rents would also be much lower.

Lots of houses in the SE sell for £1m but would cost about £250k to build excluding the price of land - imagine what house prices and rents would be without the restrictions.  Of course there are other costs to the environment of increased hose building but we all pay a massive price for protecting fields that relatively few actually see and even fewer walk through.

A useful stat

Since 1990 Germany population is up by about 1m or just over 1%.
UK population is up 9m or about 15.5%

Perhaps explains UK house price bubble more than any other single number?

Google tells me Germany had 72.81m in 1990 and 83.2m in 2021 - an increase of 14.27%

This is where google took me Germany - Place Explorer - Data Commons - see chart under demographics - could your 73m be a pre-unification number?

That would be too high for pre-unification. According to Wikipedia it's about 80 million in 1990, which sounds about right. We stand at 84 million now (83 million in 2020). UK is 56 million in 1991 vs 63 million in 2021. So a 4 million/5% increase in Germany and a 7 million/12% increase in the UK in 30 years.

Pipthecat

Once worked with an apprentice, aged 20, who declared to the office he was opting out of the company pension as the money could be better invested in by to let properties.  Lots of people tried to informally dissuade him, but it still surprised me how easy it was to just tick a box on website to opt out without receiving any formal advice or warning. 

westv

Suhusa said:

michaels said:

westv said:

michaels said:

Key factor in the UK is the imbalance between supply and demand.  If house prices were closer to build costs (because we did not restrict housing land) then rents would also be much lower.

Lots of houses in the SE sell for £1m but would cost about £250k to build excluding the price of land - imagine what house prices and rents would be without the restrictions.  Of course there are other costs to the environment of increased hose building but we all pay a massive price for protecting fields that relatively few actually see and even fewer walk through.

A useful stat

Since 1990 Germany population is up by about 1m or just over 1%.
UK population is up 9m or about 15.5%

Perhaps explains UK house price bubble more than any other single number?

Google tells me Germany had 72.81m in 1990 and 83.2m in 2021 - an increase of 14.27%

This is where google took me Germany - Place Explorer - Data Commons - see chart under demographics - could your 73m be a pre-unification number?

That would be too high for pre-unification. According to Wikipedia it's about 80 million in 1990, which sounds about right. We stand at 84 million now (83 million in 2020). UK is 56 million in 1991 vs 63 million in 2021. So a 4 million/5% increase in Germany and a 7 million/12% increase in the UK in 30 years.

Just shows how much more popular the UK is. 

Eldi_Dos

westv said:

The mortgage being paid off isn't really relevant to the original point. We'll it's not the main point. That is the fact the chap threw away 22 years of CS pension.

I hope the scientific work they were doing for the CS was more evidence based than their choices in the pension schemes.

michaels

Suhusa said:

michaels said:

westv said:

michaels said:

Key factor in the UK is the imbalance between supply and demand.  If house prices were closer to build costs (because we did not restrict housing land) then rents would also be much lower.

Lots of houses in the SE sell for £1m but would cost about £250k to build excluding the price of land - imagine what house prices and rents would be without the restrictions.  Of course there are other costs to the environment of increased hose building but we all pay a massive price for protecting fields that relatively few actually see and even fewer walk through.

A useful stat

Since 1990 Germany population is up by about 1m or just over 1%.
UK population is up 9m or about 15.5%

Perhaps explains UK house price bubble more than any other single number?

Google tells me Germany had 72.81m in 1990 and 83.2m in 2021 - an increase of 14.27%

This is where google took me Germany - Place Explorer - Data Commons - see chart under demographics - could your 73m be a pre-unification number?

That would be too high for pre-unification. According to Wikipedia it's about 80 million in 1990, which sounds about right. We stand at 84 million now (83 million in 2020). UK is 56 million in 1991 vs 63 million in 2021. So a 4 million/5% increase in Germany and a 7 million/12% increase in the UK in 30 years.

Yes, the 73, seems to be a 1960 number not 1990.